


The One to Love You

by LizzieRimmsy (HardlightLibrarian)



Series: Two Immortals [4]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Electronic boys, Flash Fic, Gen, Rampant Rimmer, Randomness, this turned out longer than i expected
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-08-11 23:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20162158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardlightLibrarian/pseuds/LizzieRimmsy
Summary: After the events of M-Corp taking over, and after Rimmer had been restored to an old back up, some things had to be retaught to the hologram. But it starts to go wrong when Aria screws up.





	1. Of All the People...

"This is your quarters?" Rimmer asked with a sneer as he glanced around the room.

In it were various Keith Haring artworks on the wall, bookcases lined with more music than a record shop, tacky, bright coloured furniture and some toys that Aria could never live without; her Spice Girl dolls set, a few Barbies from the late nineties and Pokémon figures.

Aria shrugged. "Yeah. What of it?"

"N-nothing," Rimmer cleared his throat, nervous to see this strange, Welshwoman's anger he had heard so much about. Although as dangerous as she sounded, he also found her intriguing. "Did you really take on an entire alien fleet?"

Aria briefly grinned at the excitement that twinkled in his hazel eyes. "Yeah. Well... it wasn't all me. You–" Her face went blank as her words trailed off.

Everything that happened a month ago might have been erased for him, but for her, it was still fresh in her mind; coming back, losing Rimmer, crashing into _Requiem_, meeting a new 'alien' species, almost losing Rimmer again, seeing the population of _Ivanoff Station_ turn to ash, and at last, defeating the asshole that caused it: Ur-Didact.

She knew full well that it was a lot for him to handle, on top of learning about their relationship — and, with all of that knowledge, it could possibly spark off something undesirable, like rampancy. Something he had finally rid himself of. She wasn't about to let him slip again.

Clocking the hologram's confused gaze, she continued from her last thought, speaking quickly: "Want to listen to some music? I could use some music."

Before he could answer, she shot toward the stereo and slid in a disk. What came out of the speakers was that of an early two-thousands, boy band song, to which he gave a disparaging glare.

She caught sight of his stare and folded her arms. "Oi, they were still popular when I left Earth."

"Maybe in the twentieth century... How can you stand this din?"

Aria ignored him completely, grabbed her dolls and flopped down on the floor and started playing with them, brushing their hair and changing their clothes. She paused a moment, taking in the song that played. "I swear I had a Britney Spears doll. Remind me to check All-droid for one, yeah?"

The hologram, now smegged off, had his hands firmly on his hips by this point."Are you listening to me?"

She looked up at him, baby blues narrowed. "Are _you_ listening to _me_??"

Rimmer threw his hands up in defeat. "Yes, fine, I'll make a mental note of it. But you still haven't answered me."

"Do you have anything from your childhood that you go back to now?"

"Not really," Now considerably calmer, Rimmer released the tension in his upper body and moved toward her, then sat beside her. "All the toys I had were destroyed by my brothers."

"My childhood was shitty too. Whenever I wanted to escape, I'd blare this," Aria gestured to the stereo. "Or whatever I felt like hearing... play make-believe with my dolls and plushies, flip through my Pokémon cards... be a kid for a while."

"Is that what you're doing now? Escaping?"

For a short time, she didn't speak. She just wondered why things weren't that simple anymore, why couldn't she be as careless as a child once more. These days she had to keep the boys from harm. Especially her holo-man. Yes, she wanted badly to escape from the madness, but not just yet.

Eventually, Aria replied, "Nah, I just felt like–" An old, familiar smell entered her nostrils and cut her off. She inhaled deeply and nearly had an orgasm. "Mm, still there. Smell."

Rimmer recoiled from the doll's head that suddenly came close to his face.

"It's okay," she said in a chortle. "I think it's just hairspray or something."

"You are weird."

She snorted. "Yeah, well– Admittedly, I do regress on occasion, but... I think you liked it. I think, with me, you felt like you could be the child you never could be growing up. You felt free."

His hazels stared intently into her eyes. "I did?"

"Yeah. I mean, you were still annoying, but..."

In that instant, they both chuckled, both smiling at how unbelievingly lucky they were to have found one another, even though one them didn't fully recall the other.

"You were calmer. Happier. I think," she added. _I hope_.

Hearing that she made that much of an impact on him almost made the queasiness of having his memories fiddled with disappear. It almost made him feel... lo–

_Oh God, no!_

"Are you alright? You look pale... er than usual."

Memories of McGruder and Nirvanah came flooding back. Those two times he felt... that way; he felt like dying, for a third and fourth time. He might as well have. His heart was broken into pieces and he never wanted to go through that again. Never again, he'd tell himself.

"I– I have to go," Rimmer struggled a bit to get back up, his old bones unwilling to move the way he wanted. "There is... data that needs correlating."

"You're sure you can't stay?"

Quickly, he replied, "Oh, yes. I'm sure. Definitely. That work isn't going to do itself. Must dasharoonie."

"Right..." she uttered, her words tapering off as she watched him hurry out of the room.

She knew that he would be off and distant after what happened, however, she also knew him well enough to tell when he was being cautious. It wasn't guardedness; it was fear.


	2. Going Back

Kryten had been mopping for what felt like days — in actuality, it was only a few hours — but orders were orders, and unless he finished mopping B-deck, his head would be more angular than usual, courtesy of Arnold J. Rimmer. He wouldn't, mustn't stop for anyone or anything. Not even the familiar stomping of a certain Welshwoman's three-inch heeled trainers.

The mechanoid acknowledged her with a brief look, inwardly cursed because he would have to re-mop that area, and went back to his duties as he greeted, "Good evening, Miss Harkness."

She stopped just feet away from him, her arms tightly folded. "Fix him," she commanded.

"I believe the response to that is, 'Good evening.'"

"Fix him."

Kryten stopped what he was doing and stared at her, his neon-blue eyes shining with sincerity "Ma'am, I can't–"

"I don't want to hear it! I want my Rimmer back!"

"That _is_ your Rimmer, ma'am."

"No, it isn't! He's different, he afraid of me!"

He shuffled his feet a bit; although his body anxious knew what he was about to say next was asking for a beating, his mouth still formed the words in a sardonic tone. "I can't imagine why. You're a delight."

"Oh, shut up!"

Kryten sunk his head down into his neck hole, as though he were a frightened turtle. "Sorry, Miss Harkness. But I really can not, as you said, 'fix him.' You'll simply have to rebuild your relationship."

"Oh, God, that could take forever."

"You best get started then, ma'am."

Her baby blues narrowed. "Hang on. Couldn't I just do what you're doing for Dave? Go through CCTV and upload things into his memory?"

"It's possible. It would also take a considerably less amount of time, as Mister Rimmer lost only a month of memories."

"_How_ long exactly?"

"Approximately forty-eight hours, give or take," Kryten replied.

_Well, that's my weekend planned,_ she thought. _I'm gonna need some caffeine._

* * *

Aria sat hunched over one of the many consoles in the Hologram Projection Suite.

Two hours later of watching weird and some really weird footage, she got to the point where she left the ship. Seeing how heartbroken Rimmer was tough. Seeing any of the things that went on without her was difficult to watch.

Kryten did fill in the blanks back then, but she never knew how horrible things were until that moment.

Then she witnessed Rimmer's literal explosive rage when he opened every airlock on the ship. That was the last straw for her. She always hated herself for leaving him, and this made her self-loathing a thousand times worse.

Once the feed cut to static and white noise, she looked away from the screen, and delicately pinched the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes and exhaled harshly.

"I really fucked him up, didn't I?" she mumbled to herself.

Though his rage was mostly fueled by rampancy at the time, Aria still blamed herself. If she hadn't come along and fucked things up for him, he would have been fine.

It wasn't all her either. If someone had just told her what happened, she might have been able to work out a way to make him better somehow. She did still keep in touch with her _Torchwood_ colleagues; they could've helped.

Between the anger of hating herself and hating her crewmates, her chest began to ache.

Aria slightly unclenched her jaw and stood up. Her air remained hardened, however, as she strode out, heading back to Kryten. By the time Aria arrived, he finished mopping.

He was gathering his things when he heard the same sound from two hours ago.

"Ah, finished already, ma'am?" The mechanoid quickly clocked Aria's turbulent expression and just as swiftly became nervous. "Oh, my..." he intoned.

"You... _IDIOTS_!"

"Ma'am?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, her voice more shrill than it had ever been.

"Tell you what?"

"How... _bad_ he'd gotten!" she pointedly exclaimed as she shoved her finger into Kryten's chest plate.

"Well, I feel you're overreacting, Miss Harkness. Mister Rimmer is fine now."

She relaxed to a degree. "You're right. But I– I have to know — and admittedly, this is probably a stupid, pointless question — does he know about this episode of his?"

"Well, no," he replied in a way that made him sound befuddled that she even asked.

Rage started to boil once more. "N-no?"

"We all agreed that the event was so traumatising, we decided to delete it from his memories."

Her anger stepped back to make way for a sizable amount of worry. "Y-you did?"

"Of course. You did see that it was in the folder labelled, 'Skip' didn't you?"

For a moment, she was silent. Her widened, rapidly blinking eyes fixated on the mechanoid's oddly shaped head. "So _that's_ what that meant," she thought out loud.

"Oh, ma'am," Kryten uttered with an anguished gasp. "What did you think it meant?"

"I don't know! Didn't he have some weird nickname for Dave?"

"That was Skipper. And it was Ace's nickname for Mister Lister, ma'am!"

"So Rimmer," She then waved his words and fears away like a bug. "It'll be fine. We'll just... explain to him that he had a glitch, you erased it without his permission and I added it back in."

"How do you propose we do that?"

She shrugged. "Gently? Why are you looking at me that way?"

"In what way?"

"In a way that says you have bad news. Spill it."

"Okay. We have to perform another restore."

Aria vehemently shook her head. "No, no way. Not happening. I am not going through that again — I'm not putting him through that again!"

"I'm afraid it's the only way to undo what you've done."

"There has to be–"

The lights dimmed and brightened repeatedly; _Red Dwarf's_ aircon could be heard struggling to stay on until finally, it and everything else on the ship that required power shut off.

They were now in complete darkness.

"Well, it's been a while since I've seen that."

"Fear not. The backup generator should kick in soon enough."

Almost immediately after Kryten had mentioned it, the ship made the most bizarre noise, and then they were bathed in red lights.

Realisation shone in her baby blues and promptly flicked to Kryten. "You don't think–"

"Oh, ma'am, I'm certain the changes you've made haven't taken effect yet."

The redness of the backup lighting intensified till every bulb exploded with loud pops.

Both Aria and Kryten shrieked and jumped at the same time. Before long they were in darkness once more.

Following a few heavy breaths, Aria wheezily chimed in, "You were saying?"


	3. Alter Ego

Through the darkness, they trudged; both Aria's platform trainers and Kryten's mechanoid boots echoed with each step.

It seemed quiet. Too quite.

As Aria turned the corner of the gangway, she swiftly drew her weapon, fully expecting to see someone or something pop up in front of her face. She fired from a knee-jerk reaction.

Kryten almost jumped out of his mech suit. His neon-blue eyes rolled after his nerves calmed and he realised that it was only her being stupid.

"Ma'am, please. We don't have a lot of ammunition, and we don't want to draw any unwanted attention to ourselves," he implored.

"Sorry. Force of habit. Shoot first, think never," Aria flatly and quickly replied.

"That's a rather barmy philosophy if you don't mind me saying so."

She ignored him, sighed and asked, "Where the hell is Dave and Cat?"

"Most likely trapped in whatever room they happened to be in at the time. After the backup generators fail, all doors seal automatically, to prevent fire and reinforce hull integrity."

"Guess it's just you and me then..."

"That's quite alright, ma'am. We never have these moments together, do we?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, you're always with Mister Rimmer. You hardly give the rest of us the time of day."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I've been busy with rebuilding my boyfriend's database," she unwittingly retorted.

"It's not just that, Miss Harkness. It– Wait, what did you–?"

A loud crash interrupted the mechanoid from prodding her any further.

She whipped around, facing where the noises came from.

"Honestly, ma'am, surely you are not going to shoot again."

At first, she muttered to Kryten, "Don't start with me," Then she yelled, "Oi! Show yourself!"

The soft clacking of army boots could be heard. Slowly but surely a figure straggled until it was in the light of Kryten's torch.

What Aria saw caused her stomach to plummet down to her bowels. An audible breath shakily left her gaping mouth. 

Kryten, however, was much more pleased, but also confused. "Mister... Ace, sir?"

"Kryters, old friend!" he cheerily greeted in a familiar, smooth voice. "Long time no see."

"Are you the reason for our shipwide blackout? Perhaps when you jumped dimensions you jumped a bit too close again, sir."

"I think you might have a shorted circuit board somewhere. I've been here the whole time. Now, who is the stunningly gorgeous young woman?"

That said stunningly gorgeous young woman stood before him, not at all impressed. Aria arched a single brow, appearing decidedly perplexed, and more than a little disgusted as she studied the man in shiny, silver air force fatigues and long, light brown hair.

Clocking the clear fact that Aria wasn't going to talk, Kryten introduced her. "This is Miss Aria Harkness, sir."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you," He held out his hand, offering to shake hers.

Humouring him, she shook his hand. The sheer force was enough to make her feel as though her arm was going to be ripped out of its socket.

Aria kneaded her shoulder all while staring intently at him. "Oh, _you're_ Ace," she said with a sneer.

"Looks like it," he replied with a wink.

She let out a forced, mirthful chuckle, then rose her gun and aimed at Ace. "Where's Arnold?" she screamed.

Ace slightly brought up his hands, hoping that it would somehow put her at ease. "Woah, now. Cool your jets, Missy."

She chortled, frustrated. "If I weren't wearing this loose tube top– Actually, if _he_ wasn't here, I would _so_ be kicking your arse right now!" With a thrust of her firearm, she demanded once more, "Where is he?"

"Ma'am, please. You must settle down. It's obvious he doesn't know," Kryten turned his attention to Ace. "You'll have to forgive her, sir. She gets a little touchy whenever Mister Rimmer is in danger."

"That warped, bitter, poor excuse for a man? Why?"

"Oh, fuck decorum," Aria then threw away her gun and charged towards Ace with a fist drawn.

"Ma'am!"

Ace held up a single finger, stopping Kryten. "It's alright, old chum. I'd like to see this little fireball in action."

That was all it took for an extraordinary amount of rage to swirl inside of her like a hurricane. "Li–? Excuse me?"

"Miss Harkness, might I suggest you, for lack of better words, duke it out later? For example, when we get the power back on."

"Fine by me. Kryten, you lead the way."

"Not fine!" Aria pointedly and suddenly uttered. "What about Arnold?"

"All the more reason to wait for the lights to come back, Fireball."

Her baby blues scrolled around extensively in her head, and as she walked away she brushed against him and mumbled, "I'll give you fireball... One call and I can have a Bellogan singe your arse."

Neither Ace nor Kryten heard the last part of her rant because by then she was ten feet away from them.

Ace gently elbow nudged the mechanoid's side. "Is she always like this?"

"You should see her on Friday's, sir. She is quite relaxed then."

"That's because I'm drunk!" she called out. "You coming or what?"

"The ventilation system starts this way, ma'am," Kryten said, jerking his thumb behind him. "It's the only way to reach the breaker room."

She fixed Kryten with an unblinking, blank gaze, then proceeded to walk back the other way, all the while hiding her flushed cheeks. "I knew that," she muttered.


	4. This Isn't Me

It wasn't just that Aria didn't trust Ace; she _loathed_ him! She could see why her Rimmer felt the same way. That smarm, the overconfidence, his extremely high self-esteem; no one was that perfect, not without hiding something, which she hated even more.

As her intent, laser-focused gaze burned holes in the back of Ace's head, all she could think of is how much time she was losing in finding Rimmer. She was so focused that she forgot to breathe until she began to feel light-headed.

Her sudden, shaky inhale caught Ace's attention, and he glanced back at her. "Are you alright, Fireball?"

She sniffled extensively. "Stop calling me that," she droned.

"My apologies. It's just that I find you so intense and firey," Ace then flashed on Aria's glare through the dim light of candles. "N-not that it's a-a bad thing. I-I like it."

Her narrowed eyes glinted with confusion. She had to wonder if someone like Ace would stutter.

_Arn did, whenever he was nervous._

Then it hit her. Was it possible that this was Rimmer, simply hiding as someone the opposite of who he became, to mask how messed up he was?

Aria's baby blues gradually widened as the thought entered her mind. She shook, trying to control both her sobbing and panic attack.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Near imperceptibly, she shook her head, then slowly reached out to touch his cheek. "Arn?" she uttered, her voice shaking more than her hand.

In that instant, the lights came back on, subsequentially causing an extremely distracted Aria to flinch.

"Ah," Kryten started, appearing proud of himself. "Let there be light! I know you're keen to find Mister Rimmer, ma'am. Might I suggest–"

"Actually... I think I found him."

* * *

Later, after Aria and Ri– Erm, Ace, entered her quarters, which he seemed to have forgotten how it looked.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He stared at her, dumbstruck, as if he didn't know where he was or how he arrived there. He also appeared nauseous, petrified. "I– I'm not sure," he replied, still putting on the fake Ace voice.

The corner of her mouth quirked up, forming a half-smile. How long is he gonna keep this up? she wondered. Aria motioned to her bed. "Why don't you sit down? I'll check you over."

"You?"

Her head teetered side to side like a novelty bobblehead. "Well, I was something of a doctor back home. Neurologist, actually. So I can tell what's going on in that noggin of yours. Sort of."

A sharp, intense pain stabbed him in the head, and a screeching noise, almost like a record scratching, emitted from his midsection. In a near demonic voice, he replied, "You can't tell what's coming," The same sound occurred again, then he snapped out of it. His brows pinched together. "What was–?"

"You're sick," she hastened to say. "but... it's okay. You'll be okay."

He blanched; his jaw slackened as recognition dawned on him. Every memory that was once a blur suddenly became crystal clear. He knew her; he knew what she did to him, and it wasn't fair.

"What's the matter now?"

His hazel eyes flooded with tears until finally, a couple managed to trail down his cheek. "Why did you leave me?" he asked, his voice trembling with emotion, and with no trace of Mister Smug Git whatsoever.

Aria's mouth twitched; a smile tried to form but failed. "Hey. There you are," she softly said.

Rimmer slid her a scowl just before exploding into a rage-filled fit. "ANSWER ME!" he screamed.

His projection flared and flickered immensely, highlighting the fear etched on her face.

"Okay, okay," she soothed. Her baby blues eyed his tight-fisted hand, which she was hesitant to touch it at first. Eventually, hers made contact with his. "First, I wanna ask one thing: why are you dressed like this?"

Rimmer sniffed and wiped his eyes. "You have your means of escape, this is mine."

"What are you escaping from?"

"Me," he answered. Panic overtook his features once more. "I'm scared. I don't know what's wrong with me. This isn't me! I don't want to hurt anyone."

"What are you on about? You talk about hurting these guys all the time. Lister, especially."

"Yes, but before I only dreamt of it. Now I might actually do it!" Rimmer then realised she still hadn't answered him. He waved his hand about like he was shooing away a moth. "Don't avoid my question. Why did you leave?"

Wanting nothing more than to avoid reliving the long, melodramatic explanation from last time, she went with the shorter version. "I don't know. I should have been there, and I'm sorry I wasn't. If it helps, in the time that I was gone, I was looking for a cure for this."

"What _is_ this exactly?"

"Rampancy," she responded, a deep sense of depression sinking in. She didn't want him to be afflicted with it again. Noticing the hologram's eyebrows rasing, a silent prompt for more clarity, she went on. "It's a terminal illness that affects all electronic beings at one point or another. It– It changes them."

"Can you change me back? Heal me?"

"Well, I can't. I just said that it–" In that instant, she saw his hopes dashing. She couldn't stand to see him this way, a broken, depressed mess, however, she also couldn't lie, could she? "It can't be treated by normal methods, but... I think I know what to do."

Turns out, she could...


	5. Lies, Confusion and Broken Holograms

The Holo Projection Suite; signs warned against unauthorised entry, and also warned of power in the room exceeding twenty-thousand gigawatts. Beeping, clicking and whining of hard drives running emitted from the entire room. Cooling fans remained on at all times to keep the computers from overheating. A bank of monitors towered along one wall; on these, the thoughts, memories and dreams of the ship's current holographic crewmember, Arnold J Rimmer, were displayed visually.

This room was almost made obsolete when Rimmer acquired a hard light drive for his light bee, no longer having a need for the HP Suite. However, Aria felt more comfortable keeping this room active for emergencies such as this.

"Been a while since I've been in here," Rimmer mused.

"I was just here earlier," she said and sat down at the main console.

Rimmer donned a perplexed stare. "You? Why?"

Aria didn't have a clue how to respond, knowing that anything she'd say about it would royalty tick him off. Briefly, she grimaced. "Should I start with the first major screw up or the second?"

"What did you do now?" he asked in a sing-song, tired-parent-replying-to-the-principal way.

"I, erm, may have gone through old CCTV footage, converted it to memories that would go," Aria then pressed her index finger against Rimmer's hologram indicator. "in here."

"_You_ fiddled with _my_ memories?"

"A bit, yeah."

"Without checking with me first?"

"You were M.I.A. at the time, what was I supposed to do?"

"Oh, I don't know. Look for me?"

"Which I did!"

"Yes, after the fact! After you played God with my head! Do you have any idea what that feels like?!"

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as she sighed, then returned to her original stance. "Arn, don't–"

"It's not a lovely, Swedish scalp massage, I'll tell you that," he added, almost without a beat. "Why would you do something like that? You didn't have to."

Aria shot up. "Didn't I?! I needed him back! Do you know what it's like to have someone who was such a big part of you, someone so... _ingrained_ in your mind, that the moment you have them yanked out of your life you feel lost? Empty?"

An image immediately popped up on the screens behind them; a rather pretty woman lying beneath someone, staring up at them lovingly. She moaned. "Oh, Norman, you're so–!"

The screens promptly cut to black, as though someone had switched them all off. That someone happened to be cringing inwardly and blushing hard.

_Why that of all things? You gimboid._

"Norman?" Aria incredulously echoed.

"Not important," he quickly spoke. "The point is... Well, you're missing the point: you didn't have to do this. It's still me."

"Oh, no it isn't! You don't love me! You even look at me the same way! I am gone from that stupid head of yours and there's nothing I can do about it!"

Although Rimmer's face went blank, inside he was crying. In as even a voice as he could manage, he asked, "Is that what you think?"

"No, it's what I know! You're not him, you're... _their_ Rimmer! The Rimmer who never met me, who never... saved me."

He gave an imperceptible curt nod. "Do you mean like the time I held you on the bathroom floor when you were panicking?"

"Oh, what does it matter? You–" All of a sudden, she became nonplussed. _Wait. Did he–?_

He didn't say a word. Only a modest arch of an eyebrow and a continuous poker-face was given.

Slowly, she rose her hand and pointed at the hologram. "Why–?"

"Because I didn't lose a month's worth of memory."

"You di– What?" she demanded in a shriek.

The innocent smile he once had faded when he clocked her gaze of unmitigated anger. "I... switched off before the restore could start," he replied, faltering a small bit. "But this is a good thing. Right?" He burst into a tiny fit of nervous laughter.

Like a cow masticating on grass, she chewed the inside of her bottom lip for a moment. "You mean this all could have been avoided if you had just told me in the first place?"

"Well," he uttered in a slight, anxious squeak. Rimmer's head bobbled as if he were attempting to line up words to form a cohesive, convincing excuse. When none did, he simply and apprehensively answered, "Yes."

"So why the theatrics? Why cause a shipwide blackout and pretend to be someone you're not?"

"It was an accident. When that memory entered my head, I lost it. I was horrified. I never thought I'd–" Rimmer took in an unnecessary breath and swallowed his emotions. "The next thing I knew, everything was exploding around me, and then I became– Well, he's calm and collected, isn't he? Compared to me."

"And you thought lying to me would–?"

"I didn't want to! It was never the right time, so... I'm sorry."

Aria strode up to the hologram, who kept shuffling backwards to keep away from her. Eventually, she had him against the wall.

Rimmer eyed a nearby pen and, having no other defence against her, swiftly drew it up and pointed it at her face, just prior to having it slapped out of his clutches. He recoiled as much as he could from the small hand that was coming towards his cheek, then when he noticed she was merely caressing him, he relaxed.

Without warning, Aria ploughed into him for a tight embrace, her ear right against his chest. She swore she could hear some sort of a pulse. _That couldn't be... could it?_ Her eyes narrowed, considering the implications.

He stalled, stunned by the unanticipated and unwarranted show of affection. His arms hovered over her back then, little by little, wrapped them around her, and rested his chin on the top of her head. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

When he spoke, she lost whatever sound she was hearing. Her facial features softened, until she looked up at his skinny, slightly aged face, getting a load of his thinning, greying hair, and her expression hardened once more. This was new, weird. She didn't dare ask him to change his appearance back from a month ago; doing so would make her feel selfish, one thing she wasn't.

It wasn't long before Rimmer copied the same thoughtful air. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" she flatly asked.

"Like you're trying to see something really small on my face. _Is_ there something on my face?" He wiped every inch with his hand to cover his bases.

Aria couldn't help but chuckle. He might have seemed older but he was still her adorable holo-man, and that was better than nothing.

"No, you're fine," she said. "Just... next time you feel insecure, don't pose as that douchebag, alright?"

"Ugh, no problem there. I hated that."

She hummed, closed her eyes and clung tighter onto him. She never wanted to let go.

Seconds passed, and they were still embraced. Rimmer was even falling asleep until he felt a familiar sensation lurch out of his stomach and up to his throat.

He made a muffled gagging sound through his closed mouth.

Aria's eyes shrunk and her upper lip lifted in a disgusted snarl. "I know you don't enjoy this sort of thing but c'mon."

The same noise emitted from him again, this time louder.

She briskly moved away. Widened baby blues fixed to the hologram's green complexion. "Are you okay?"

In all the arguing and making up, she forgot he was having symptoms of rampancy.

"Ah! Right, sorry. Double memories. I'll fix that," she rapidly spoke as she hustled to the console. "but for the love of God _do_ _not_ puke!"

"Like I have controllllllhh..."

"Oh God, what did I just say?!" Somehow, in the midst of her panic attack, she was able to calm herself to a degree. Enough to think rationally at least. "It's okay, it's not contagious," she mumbled to herself repeatedly. She drew in a sharp, deep breath through her nostrils and continued to work.

Soon after, she located the duplicate memories, as well as the new one she mistakenly added and removed them as fast as she could. "Okay, how's that?" Just as she turned her attention back to Rimmer, she witnessed him collapse. With no second thought, Aria rushed to his side. "Hey. Arn? Sweetie, can you hear me?" Rapidly, she tapped on the top of his hand. "Arnold?"

Gradually, his hazel eyes opened, blearily glancing at her before staring off into space. In a way, his mind was still rebooting, multiple programs trying to start but failing; comprehension had stopped working.

"Arnold?"

His eyes flicked to her, staring emotionlessly, and his lips pursed by the narrowest of margins. He appeared to be having troubles swallowing, as the muscles in his neck strained to down his saliva.

Following a small coughing fit, he gulped and struggled to say, "H-hhiii."

It wasn't that his voice was going; his brain literally wouldn't allow him to form words.

"Hey," she greeted, chortling. "You're okay. Try not to move."

His tongue darted out to wet his extremely dry lips. It was like he hadn't drunk anything in days.

Rimmer did his best to speak, but once again, he found he couldn't. This wasn't right. He usually talked quite a bit — some days no one could get him to shut up — except now it seemed as though someone had found his mute button.

_Did I delete something I shouldn't have?_ Aria wondered. She was just about off the floor when the hologram gently grabbed her forearm to stop her. "What? What's wrong?"

His mouth hung open for a while, at first only producing groans of effort. In time, though, he finally got another word out: "I..."

She eyed him intently, desperately wanting to hear what he had to say, yet still remaining patient.

He tried again, his speech still faltering. "I... love you."

A light snicker left her and a faint grin formed. "I love you, too."

"I love you."

"Yeah, you mentioned."

Rimmer kept saying the same thing, over and over until it became one whole word, and after some time, it evolved into gibberish nonsense.

Aria's Mona Lisa smile disappeared in a flash and a fear-stricken gaze took its place. Then and there, knowing full well what was going on, she yanked off her hoodie, balled it up and gingerly slid it under his head.

Aria's shaky hand loosely held his. "I don't even know if you can understand me, but I want you to know it'll be okay. This won't last long."

What started out as slow, marginal movements developed into harsh convulsions. It was the first time rampancy brought about a seizure. Hopefully, it would be the _only_ time.

The hologram gasped, gagged, contorted into positions that no human should bend in; his partially opened eyes rolled back into his skull.

Seconds later — although it felt like minutes — the episode ended. Following a large exhale, every bit of him relaxed.

It was more than what could be said of Aria. Her pulse thumped so hard she felt it in her throat and stomach, competing to be as fast as Usain Bolt.

Inch by inch, she stood, all while keeping her eyes fixed on the hologram who laid motionlessly on his side, unconscious. She glanced to the doorway, specifically at the emergency assistance button at the right of it.

Like fog drifting across a lake, she moved towards it and pressed it. She then strolled back to Rimmer, easing herself down beside him. For the umpteenth time that day, she watched him intently. The difference this time was that she was terrified.

_It came back._

For once, it was affecting him physically, and if she had just been satisfied with the way things were, this wouldn't have happened. She blamed herself for this.

As alarms blared, she began to sob just as loudly. She persistently hit herself in her thighs, working her way down the leg; she knew she deserved worse, though, but worse couldn't happen — she couldn't die. So she settled for self-abuse. A harsh, anguished scream bellowed into the air as she gave one last formidable punch to the shin.

Through the blurred vision that her retained tears caused, she looked at him. A couple of blinks forced drops out that landed on the hologram's hand.

She flopped to the floor, lying next to him, and stared at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry," she choked out past her whimpering. "I know you don't like me doing this sort of thing but... on the plus side, my body will heal before the bruises even begin to form, so..." She mirthlessly sniggered, and turned her head. Catching sight of how tranquil he was, a sudden calmness washed over her. She hadn't seen him like this in a while, and unfortunately, it took a seizure to do it.

Aria rolled over, facing him, and raked her fingers through his mousy brown, thread-like hair. "I'm sorry," she uttered one last time. "I couldn't stop it."

There _was_ no stopping it.

_It came back._


	6. Untitled

Kryten scuttled through the open doorway to the Holo Projection Room, both of his arms full, one carrying portable medical equipment while the other carried various, nonperishable snacks from the ship's dispensers. He wasn't sure if it was a medical emergency or a food emergency, so he thought he'd cover each one.

Once he saw the two of them on the floor, he gasped and dropped everything with no regard for the items; the chocolate cupcakes with vanilla filling may very well have been smashed by the injector, but he didn't care – a human's life was at stake.

He flicked the off switch on the alarm and rushed to them. "Ma'am?" Kryten gently placed his hand on Aria's shoulder. "Miss Harkness?"

Aria opened her eyes, blearily staring at the wall in front of her. She didn't respond.

"Are you alright?"

"No," she flatly replied.

"What happened?"

Despite sleeping on the floor for longer than she intended, she shot up onto her haunches. She looked at Kryten with eyes filled with a combination of guilt and worry. "I-I don't know. I removed the memories I added, he collapsed and had a seizure and– I don't know!" she blurted out as quick as a child spewing out a confession to their parent.

"A seizure?" he incredulously repeated. "Was it bad?"

"Aren't they _all_ bad?"

"Point taken, ma'am," As neon-blue eyes observed the snoozing hologram, a thought occurred to him. "Tell me, was his projection on when you removed those memories?"

"Well, yeah."

"Oh, Miss Harkness! I gave you that manual on holograms for a reason!"

"Oh, what would that thing tell me, 'Call this number,' where I'll be put on hold for the next two hours, only to be told, 'Try turning him off and on again'?" she demanded, her voice rising.

"He should have been switched off in the first place, before you did anything. You know his system runs about as smoothly as_Internet Explorer_."

"Get to the explanation, Kryten."

"It's highly likely you overloaded him when you added memories and then deleted them, both while he was still online and functioning. Without a decent working system in his light bee, it caused him to crash. Since he's a human-hologram, his collapse was the closest thing to crashing, and the seizure–"

"Was basically his system trying and failing to fix the errors," she continued. Harshly, she exhaled, frustrated at herself for causing this cluster smeg of a day. Still, she could handle this instead of a terminal illness. "Right. Tell me what to do. How do I make him better?"

"There's no other option. We have to do a full restore."

Her face went blank, pale. Aria leaned and ear in closer to the mechanoid, as though she misheard. She was certain she did. "I-I'm sorry. What?"

"We have no choice. I'm afraid you've broken him beyond what his self-repair can manage, ma'am."

"And if we don't?"

"Then he'll continue to have these seizures."

A muffled, anguished scream left her as she covered her face with both hands, then removed them, grabbed one of the snacks off the floor and started stress eating. "No. No, no way," she said, her voice stifled by cake and frosting. Aria vehemently wagged her finger. "Not gonna happen. If there's a system, there's a way to boot into safe mode. Correct?"

"Yes. It can be accessed via the light bee programming disc," Kryten answered, attempting to hide a conscience-stricken grimace.

"Alright. Definitely need that. Where is it?" She rummaged through the drawers within the console and had no luck; then she held out her hand, palm facing upwards, waiting for it to miraculously materialise there. Aria began snapping her fingers when it didn't, as if it would somehow make it appear. "Why is it not in my hand, Kryten?"

"And get it full of chocolate cake, ma'am?"

"Kryten!"

"What makes you think _I_ have it?"

"You always have everything!"

"Well, not _this_."

"So where is it?"

"Erm..."

"Well?" she barked, giving him an indignant glare she knew he was all too familiar with.

Kryten's features scrunched up, signalling that his voice would go supersonic in a few seconds.

"Er, Krytie? Are you–?"

"We lost it!" he wailed in a high-pitched tone.

"You lost it? How could you lose it?"

Kryten sniffled and, all the while sobbing, replied, "Back on _Red Dwarf_, when it was recreated by the nanites. They took into consideration that we had no hologram on board and–"

"Okay. I think I get it," she said, defeated. "We're screwed then."

The main computer made a high pitched beep that snagged their attention.

Aria walked to it, curiously fixating on it. From the side, she could make out some sort of code. It wasn't until she saw it head-on that she saw it was the same code, repeating until the screen was filled with it.

_Forty-eight, sixty-five, six-c, seventy, twenty, six-d, sixty-five._

"What the hell is that?"

Kryten waddled up beside her. "Hm. Hex code. Interesting."

"What does it mean?"

"It reads, _'Help me.'_ Written over and over again. I think it's Mister Rimmer."

Aria hunched over the keys, her fingers hovering of them. "How do I respond?"

"Allow me, ma'am. I'll translate."

"Okay. Ask him what we should do."

The keys clack-clack-clacked as Kryten typed. He hit enter, and there was an excruciatingly long pause before they got a reply.

_Forty-four, sixty-nine, sixty-five._

"Oh dear," Kryten uttered, on tenterhooks.

"What? What'd he say?" Catching a glimpse of the hologram's projection flickering, she had a feeling it wasn't good. "Never mind. Tell him we're only trying to help."

_Forty-nine, twenty-seven, six-d, twenty, seventy-three, six-f, seventy-two, seventy-two, seventy-nine._

"_'I'm sorry,'_ he says."

She gave the unconscious hologram a thin-lipped, half-smile. "I know. It's okay. Just tell us what we can do."

_Four-d, sixty-nine, six-e, sixty-four, seventy-three, sixty-three, sixty-one, seventy, sixty-five._

"_'Mindscape.'_ I'm sorry, Miss Harkness. I think he may be fading."

Suddenly, realisation dawned on her. "Of course. Of course! Gahh, you're brilliant!" she quickly spoke, grinning and gesturing wildly at Rimmer.

"Ma'am?"

"_Mindscape_ isn't part of the ramblings of a crazed man, it's a _place_. In the late twenty-first century, Kentucky was the first state to have a VR-cade built. Actually, it was in the first stages when I left but..." Aria brandished her hands about like a madwoman as if swatting away her tangent. "Doesn't matter! _Mindscape_ obviously took off, because here, three million years into deep space, we have one of their machines."

"On _Starbug_, yes."

"The very one. So we somehow connect the VR machine with Rimmer, enter his system and repair him. Easy peasy!"

"You got all of _that_ from one word?" Kryten asked, his voice laced with dubiousness.

_Fifty-three, sixty-eight, sixty-five, twenty-seven, seventy-three, twenty, seventy-two, sixty-nine, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, seventy-four, two-e._ Which roughly translated to: "She's right."

"Oh," Kryten said and heavily downturned his mouth; the best way he could show his embarrassment. "Well, in that case, it _is_ a brilliant idea. _Too_ brilliant, actually. I'm not so certain this is Mister Rimmer we're speaking to," The mechanoid gasped at a response from Rimmer too vulgar to repeat in front of a woman. "Sir!"

Aria rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Come on. We've got a game to play."


	7. THX Two-Thousand-Forty-Nine

The two made their way through _Starbug's_ dreary, metal corridors for what felt like forever to Aria.

"Why does it seem like this ship is half the size of _Red Dwarf_?" she asked.

"Perhaps because it is. Some time ago we had an altercation with our technologically advanced future selves, which caused dimensional anomalies and expanded the ship."

"Oh, is _that_ all?" Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head. "That makes _no_ sense, Kryten. Why would–?"

"Ah! We're here," he chirpily said, then stepped into the room marked Artificial Reality Suite.

The AR Suite was a small, roughly cubic room, featuring computer panels on the walls and a large mechanical seating contraption in its centre.

With the umpteenth roll of her eyes that day, she sighed as she thought, _You know what? It's not worth it_. She tapped a wall panel before entering, and the hatchway door slid closed behind her. Afterwards, she noticed something odd. "Er, Kryten?"

"I'm seeing this too, ma'am."

What they saw was the AR machine glowing a bright, neon green colour, illuminating the entire room.

"Is this thing rampant too?"

"I'm pretty sure it only affects machines with a consciousness, Miss Harkness."

She shot him a wry look. "I'm joking, mate. Look, we can't connect him to this. Not while it's a mess."

"I'll see what I can do."

"See that you do..." she said, unaware that she spoke aloud, let alone uttered something akin to Rimmer. She was too wrapped up in studying the hologram's light bee. She brought the device to her lips and nose, then retracted it shortly after realising how hot it was to the touch. "I think he's overheating. How much longer?"

"Just a few minutes more, ma'am. Something must have happened last time Mister Lister was in here. This machine has more corruption than the White House in the twenty-first century!" Kryten poked around with the control panel, and within a few moments, he had it working. "That should take care of that. However, we do have a short window, as far as how long we can–"

"Yeah, yeah great, let's get on with it," she hastened to say, impatient.

"Yes, ma'am. If you'll erm, place the light bee there, we can get started."

Aria set the device on the control panel between the two AR seats, allowing Kryten to plug in wires that fed into the machine and patch Rimmer in.

"Okay. We're all set."

She settled into the seat on the left and shot the controls a perplexed gaze. "What do I do? I've never used this thing before."

"It's fairly straight forward — just sit back, put the visor on over your eyes and the machine will do the rest."

Having her reservations, Aria fiddled with the pocket flap on her tan, army fatigue bottoms. It all felt iffy to her, not knowing a damn thing about the machine. What she didn't know scared her.

Regardless, she did what Kryten said; she relaxed a bit, flipped the visor down and within seconds she was in another, virtual, world.

She winced, her eyes hurting from the sudden brightness. Once she adjusted, she winced for another reason entirely. "What the hell is this?"

It was a boring, strange world, for sure. No colour to it; it was all white. No buildings, either. Nothing.

_Well, I highly doubt the man's mind is this blank_, she thought. _He has too many voices in his head for things to be this dead_.

_Fwip!_

In that instant, Kryten materialised beside her. It took a moment for his surroundings, or lack thereof, to sink in. When it did, his neon-blues widened. "Oh! This is peculiar. I wasn't expecting this."

"Me neither. Why are we in a George Lucas film? Where's Robert Duvall when you need him?"

Across the way, standing alone in the blank, nothingness, was a man, his arms folded and his back turned to them. He wore a blue and white striped shirt, tucked into his dark-coloured trousers, topped with brightly coloured braces.

"Perhaps that man over there can tell us what's going on," Kryten surmised.

"That's not just a man," Aria uttered flatly. 

"Ma'am?"

"That's Arnold." 

"How can you tell?" 

She smirked. "I know my sweetheart," she replied. She didn't want to tell him that his backside gave it away.

Slowly, they approached him.

A song played within the simulation, which only confused her. It was one she knew well. "Why is there music? Where is it coming from?" 

"Essentially, this is Mister Rimmer's mind, so perhaps... in his head?" 

_Why this, of all songs?_ she thought. It was one of her many favourites. _He wouldn't know this unless he– Oh._

Kryten noticed her hardened stare. "Is everything okay, ma'am?" 

"Don't be so scared of the things you love..." she sang along, not paying any attention to the mechanoid. "He does remember me."

Aria moved closer in. So close that she could have kissed him then and there. She tilted her head, studying his face closely. Somehow he appeared younger; around twenty-five. His hair was thicker than she'd ever seen before; not his usual short back and sides.

Softly, he was singing. He knew it so well, it must have been his earworm for days, if not weeks. He seemed so out of it that he didn't realise he was doing it, let alone swaying along with it. 

She couldn't help but smile, ever so slightly. She thought he was still lying, trying to make her feel better, but no, she was still in there. 

_"Diving into waves over deeper waters. Fools from far away, close enough to fall in. I never could say, I never could say again what I wanted. I never could see, I never could see the waves that rolled you under."_

Gently, she stroked his bicep. "Arn?"

His eyes slowly opened, and bit by bit, flicked to Aria where they fixated on her face, sluggishly scrutinising every inch. 

Aria glanced at Kryten behind her and said, "He's not a hologram." 

Kryten nodded. "I presume this is how he wishes he appeared — young and alive."

She dreamt of this — seeing him alive, at least — but until she got a view of it, her dreams became something more. Now she knew she needed this. There was always something missing whenever they were together when he was a hologram: physicality. Sure, she still felt his touch, but it felt like nothing. It lacked warmth and texture.

Out of the blue, Rimmer wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. 

There it was; the body heat, the sensation of his hair and skin brushing against her. He even smelled of a satisfying, tantalising, musky cologne. She almost didn't want to let go.

She looked into his hazel eyes, so tired and full of subtle apprehension. He was scared but, at the same time, too exhausted to care. 

Rimmer began to go limp, his body slipping out of Aria's grip only for a moment before she caught him. 

Aria groaned lightly with strain as she attempted to keep him upright. In the end, they both ended up on the floor, still embraced. 

"It's alright. I've got you. Stay with me," she whispered in his ear. Then her eyes diverted to Kryten, staring at him intently. "What's wrong with him?" 

"I think Mister Rimmer is, in fact, still rampant, and his condition is beginning to spread to the AR machine. We have about five minutes before we have to leave." 

"Leave?" she demanded. "I'm not leaving him!" 

"Ma'am, you don't understand — if the simulation becomes corrupted while we're still in it, we'll be locked in here forever!" 

She winced as Rimmer tightened his grip on her, no doubt scared from the yelling.

"Shh, it's okay," she softly spoke, and then kissed the top of his head. Her lips tingled from excessive heat. "He's burning up." 

"And he will only get worse unless we hurry." 

Five minutes wasn't enough for anything she had planned. She had to leave the simulation, grab a few things, come back and begin to ascertain what was going on. It would be a further five minutes before she would have something worked out. 

"Sir, I need you to think. Have you seen anything strange?" 

Rimmer simply gave him a blank look, the mechanoid's oddly shaped head blurred through his dozy eyes. It wasn't long before he went back to sleep, nestling into Aria's arms. 

"It's no use," Kryten lamented as he began to waddle away. "We're not going to get anything out of him." 

Aria didn't even struggle to move; she couldn't be bothered. She couldn't abandon him, not now.

She observed every bit of the immaculate, white walls. There was nothing in the room. Eventually, her eyes clapped on what seemed to be a console at the far end, almost too obscure to notice at first.

"Hey, Kryten, I–" When she looked behind her, he was gone. "Kryten?" A long, shaky exhale exited through her mouth. "Okay... Not the first time we've been left to our own devices, eh, Arn?" 

He didn't respond, too out of it to even try. 

"Arn? Arnold, wake up!"

He jerked and popped his eyes open. 

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I just need you to hold on to me, okay, and we're gonna go over there. Think you can manage that?"

With all the energy of a sloth, he nodded and started to rise as she helped him. Halfway there, his body gave in. 

Aria strained to hold him up. "Sweetie, you're gonna have to work with me here. I can't lift you on my own." 

"I can't," he wheezed.

"Sure you can. Here," Aria put his arm around her neck and placed her hand on his waist, pushing him close to her body, while the other held his forearm. "Is this okay?" 

"Yes. I think." 

"Well, does it hurt?"

Rimmer's brain fizzled. Hazel eyes fixated on her baby blues while he thought, _She is more beautiful than I remember, and she smells... incredible._

In that instant, all he could think about was what it would be like to kiss her again. It had been so long since they did anything romantic. It wasn't until then when they were face to face, alone and uninterrupted by goits beyond their power, that the urge started overpowering everything else. Exhaustion, pain, they took a back seat while lust took the wheel and drove like mad. 

"Are you–?" Suddenly, Aria let out a muffled shriek as Rimmer rushed in for a big snog. 

His tongue rolled over hers repeatedly. He forgot the one reason she never went down on him: her touchy gag reflex. However, as soon as she started making a minutely suppressed retching noise, triggered by his big, long tongue, he was quickly reminded. 

Swiftly, Rimmer pulled away and stared anxiously at her. "Sorry! I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

Naturally, her first response, albeit silent, was a, 'What do you think?' kind of look. Soon, it was replaced with a panicked expression, her nostrils flaring with every quick breath she drew in. It was a silly thing to think, but whether or not she was about to be sick was all that spun uncontrollably in her mind. She couldn't help it. 

He wasn't fairing much better. He, too, was hyperventilating, dreading that he fucked up the one good relationship he had, all because his tongue was too large for her mouth. 

Rimmer was about to apologise again when exhaustion struck him once more. He wobbled to and fro like a popular children's toy from the twentieth century. But unlike that toy, he _was_ about to fall down. Rimmer crumpled to the floor and laid unconscious at her feet.

It wasn't too long after that Aria's anxiety attack reached its peak; the top of her head buzzed, her hands, lips and feet tingled and she felt as though she wasn't really there. Her knees turned to jelly, leaving her no choice except to fall on to them.

The edges of her vision darkened with each second, and the last thing she remembered thinking was, This is a first.

Her whole body slackened, dropping down beside Rimmer. 

Meanwhile, outside, the AR machine sparked and buzzed with electricity. The simulation became corrupted, just as Kryten surmised that it would, leaving Aria stuck in a virtual interpretation of the hologram's mind, and consequentially leaving it and her vulnerable to rampant hallucinations that, in this scenario, would be made flesh. There was no telling what horrors she would encounter. This _was_, after all, Rimmer's brain.


	8. Virtual Insanity

After an hour, they had awoken. What they woke up to was less than pleasing. Suddenly, they were in a room, likened to a torture chamber within an underground prison. All of the cells were connected to one another, for the sole purpose of forcing other inmates to see what they had to look forward to as the guards beat their prisoners into a bloody pulp.

Only no-one was here except for Rimmer and Aria. The hologram's other incarnations left their cells, their whereabouts unknown.

Aria slowly but surely rose to her feet, observing her surroundings apprehensively. "Oh, now what the hell?" she droned.

It reminded Rimmer of the cell he was in at Rimmerworld. Fun times were not had there, not in the least. So naturally, he instantly panicked. He was stuck again, in another dungeon; of course, he would be scared.

Clocking the hologram after hearing Rimmer made a whining noise, Aria hurriedly knelt down beside him. "Oh, no. Hey. Don't do this to me again."

Piercing screeches and whines echoed, giving every indication that the source was everywhere, yet nowhere to be seen. They heard fast scuffling, but again, nothing there.

_Now, this is more like it, _she thought.

"What do we do?" Rimmer hastened to ask, his voice laced with alarm. "We'll be dead in a minute."

"You don't think I know that?" she barked back, then uttered a popping hiss of frustration. "Look, the plan is still on — we head for that console."

Rimmer whipped around searching for it and found that it was missing. "Where's it gone?"

Aria scanned the area until a pale red light at the back of the building caught her eye. "There. That's it there! Let's go!"

They sprinted towards it, thanking a higher power that they'd soon be out, only to stop dead in their tracks.

Something plopped down from the ceiling. It stood upright. It was immensely tall, skeletal and ominous, to say the least. Two more followed, then three more, five more — too many more to count.

Rimmer's breath caught in his throat. Ordinarily, this was when he would have begun crying out; fear, however, froze him entirely.

Even Aria, who had seen a lot worse in her short lifetime, was shaken to her core. Although she could hardly breathe, let alone speak, she tried regardless. "Arn?" she croaked out.

Rimmer whispered in return, "What?"

"New plan."

"Yeah, what's that?"

She breathed in deep, and tightly grabbed hold of Rimmer's hand. "Basically..." She then screamed, "RUN!"

They busted through the unlocked cell door and beelined down the corridor, in the opposite direction of danger.

Aria made the horrible mistake of glancing behind her, catching sight of the creatures bouncing off the walls like life-size fleas, too quick to make out what they were. She figured it was for the best.

"I was grateful when you showed. Then I remembered... danger follows you _everywhere_!" Rimmer shouted, wheezing the entire time.

"Yeah, kind of goes with the name! What the hell is wrong with you anyway?"

"What?"

"This is _your_ mind! What are these things?"

"How should I know?"

Whatever they were, they were hideous in appearance and fast as hell. They exhibited spinal disfiguration, giving them a hunchback-like appearance. Their teeth were sharp and disfigured. With limbs much longer than a human's, it gave them the ability to climb up walls and to make small jumps to and from different spots in the blink of an eye. Bald and having white, milky eyes and no male or female characteristics, essentially bones with taut, glossy, pale skin, it freaked Aria out more than anything she had ever seen before.

"Look!" the hologram rasped in exclamation, pointing at a door clearly marked, '_Exit_.' Briefly grinned, relieved. "We're going to make it!"

"Don't jinx it!"

Aria shoved the door open with her shoulder, allowed Rimmer to hightail it out ahead of her, and, using a nearby pipe, she jammed in through the handles. She knew it wouldn't hold for long, but long enough for them to escape.

Now that the simulation had transformed into something sadistic and horrific, there were buildings, though they were immensely nightmarish and showed signs of breaking down with a good, hard gust of wind.

She laid eyes on an old, run-down cabin in the middle of nowhere. _Better than nothing_, she thought. Aria grabbed Rimmer's forearm and dragged him along with her. "In here!"

They raced through the decrepit front entrance and hurried inside.

Aria slammed the door shut and struggled to move furniture in front of it to form a barricade.

Meanwhile, Rimmer paced back and forth, crying and breathing heavily.

"That should hold it," she said hoarsely and tapped on a floral printed sofa with her fingertips, as if she were giving it a job well-done pat on the back. She glanced over her shoulder, then did a double-take when she clocked the distressed hologram. "Hey. It's okay. We're safe."

"I'm sorry," he uttered with a moan, his chin quivering.

She took him by the shoulders. "Listen to me! This isn't your fault, you hear me?"

"You said this is _my_ mind. It _is_ my fault!"

"It's not like you can control this, sweetie," Her eyes flicked to his hand gripping his chest. It was clear to her that he was getting worse. Now it was a matter of guessing what would kill him: rampancy or a stress-induced heart attack.

"Arn, I know you're scared. So am I, but you need to calm down. If you die–"

"I CAN'T CALM DOWN! CAN'T YOU SMEGGING SEE THAT?"

The dreadful creatures screeched an ear-piercing shriek that sent shivers down Aria and Rimmer's spines.

The lights inside the cabin flickered. It grabbed the hologram's attention.

Aria placed her index finger and thumb on Rimmer's chin and turned his head, forcing him to face her. "Hey, we're in this together, yeah? You keep me safe, I keep you safe."

"Why me? I'm too broken to be saved."

"That's why."

"What, so you can fix me?" he demanded. "Is that all I am to you? Some device of yours that needs to be repaired?"

"No. So we can be broken together. Put two broken pieces together and you make it whole, right? We can help each other."

He regarded her with such disbelief. "Why on Io would you do that?"

"Because I love you, you idiot!"

"You– You what?"

"Don't make me say it again," she whimpered. Aria covered her face so he wouldn't see her red-faced and in tears.

She never said, 'I love you,' because those three words made things official, and whenever anything became official, it was always taken away from her; best friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, family... they all left her after she said, 'I love you.'

His eyes slightly narrowed yet his mouth was agape. He was still dubious. "You love me? Why?"

"I don't know! I always have, even when I was five," She caught sight of his confused expression. "Okay, not _really_, but you know what I mean."

"I'm not sure I do."

"I always dreamt of being with someone who was like me, someone who understood me. Someone who was... you," she said, her voice trembling with emotion. "The moment I saw you in that shopping mall all those years ago, I– I kept telling myself, 'He's just a mission,' but... you were more than that. You were _always_ more than that."

"Me?" Rimmer scoffed. "No, you're mistaken. I'm nothing, a nobody. You fell for the wrong man."

"I'm pretty sure it was you. And if I have to stay here with a twenty-fiver-year-old version of you and the ravenous demons that lurk in your mind, then so be it," she said, and gave him a light smile.

Rimmer fixed her with a simper. "Twenty, actually."

Her skin crawled at the idea of it. "Oh, God, I'm older than you."

"Only by nine years."

Aria tightly wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm a cougar."

Rimmer spluttered out a mirthless chuckle. "Of all the things to worry about. What about those _things_ out there?"

"I haven't actually heard them in a while," Clocking the hologram's petrified air, she soon figured out why. "One of 'em is behind me, aren't they?"

Without taking his eyes off the creature towering over her, he nodded.

Little by little, she tilted her head back and got an eyeful of its slobber as it screamed at her, bearing its pointed teeth past its lipless mouth. Unfazed, Aria then wiped her face with the palm of her hand and blinked rapidly; she was more annoyed than anything else — she just cleaned her face earlier that month.

Soon after that, Aria noticed something strange about the creature. It had scars; scars that she recognised. From one side of its left shoulder, through the other side and all the way to where its heart was were multiple lesions, all varying in size and in an arched pattern, and another one on the right side of its jaw.

The more she stared at it, the more she understood what it was, what it stood for and why it was reluctant to murder her on the spot. At that point, it wasn't scary to her anymore.

"Well, kill it!" Rimmer ordered.

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"I told you, there's no cure."

Infinitesimally, his nose twitched as his nostrils flared. "Harkness!"

At a slow pace, she lifted her hand to touch its scars merely seconds before the creature seized hold of her wrist, gripping so tight that it could easily break bones. She winced but didn't wail or holler; she stayed as calm and motionless as she could.

"Aria, please, it's going to hurt you."

While she never took her gaze off of it, she lifted a single finger from her free hand, silently telling Rimmer to hush up. A half-grin flashed upon her face. "I got it. Hey, Big Man. You've grown. You haven't been juicing, have you? You look... I don't wanna say puffy–"

"Harkness, what are you doing?"

She ignored him and continued to antagonise it. "Honestly, if you thought being giant would make you better than your brothers, well," She snickered. "you're mistaken, sir."

Somehow, that struck a nerve with the monster. Anger thundered through it, a telltale sign a raging storm was about to come. It screeched at her once more.

Lights flickered again.

Aria had an odd reaction to it all; she laughed. "Oh, this is brilliant!" she blurted out.

Rimmer couldn't understand why she was so happy when her demise was just moments away. The hologram scoffed for a second time. "Yes, it's always great news when you've pissed off a gargantuan, dribbling beast. You're completely insane, you know that?"

Faltering, all while still fixating on the creature, she replied, "You have a virtual manifestation of your rampancy standing right here, and I'm the insane one?"

Rimmer raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. "My what?"

"Look at it."

He couldn't. It was too disturbing for him to even try.

"It's you. How you see yourself when you're like this. Horrifying, grotesque, more colossal than you can manage... A monster."

Gradually, apprehensively, he stared at it. He didn't blink; he didn't dare, in case he missed it tearing him to shreds. He gulped. "Still, I think we should kill it."

"I wouldn't know how. There's more of them anyway, I can't get rid of them all."

"Well, do something. I can't look at it anymore."

She pulled away from its loosened grasp, and took a step back, with a hand on her chin.

His rampancy monster simply watched her. Homicidal thoughts entered what remained of its mind, yet it resisted the urge to lay a long, bony finger on her.

Finally, she came up with a plan. Although it disturbed her no end to look it in its dead eyes, she did regardless. "I know you're angry, and I know you like being here, but you're _really_ screwing with his head. So if you and your friends could just leave... please...?"

It let out a series of chirps and tilted its head in confusion.

Under the assumption that this reality was akin to the Psi-moon the boys landed on and considering their absence when things were calm and their arrival when things were turbulent, Aria did exactly what they had done to vanquish Rimmer's Self-loathing, except _she_ wouldn't be lying.

"Look, no-one is going to hurt you. No-one is out to get you. I'm only here because I want to help him — you. I l–" Aria leaned closer, enough to smell the pongy, rotting stench that exuded from its body. She coughed and went on. "I love you, even when you're like this — at your worst. There is _nothing_ I wouldn't do for you."

Rimmer's hazel eyes flicked back and forth between them, and held his breath as they stared each other down.

A few moments later, after a harsh puff of air left the creature's nostrils, it doubled back and ran off.

Grateful, Aria released the oxygen she was keeping back in a large, heavy exhale. Rimmer, on the other hand, was bewildered that it worked.

She was under no illusion that his rampancy monster would come back at some point, but for the time being, she had cured him.

"Now we just have to get out of here," she mused.

"I can't believe it. How did you do that?"

She shrugged. "When have you ever not listened to me?"

The cabin they were once in began to disappear, fading back to the white, empty space it was before.

"Well, okay then," Aria nudged Rimmer in his side. "Let's go."

"Can I come back with you?"

This had her speechless. She wasn't even sure if it would go as he had planned. Whatever he had planned.

"Arn, you're already there."

"No, _he's_ there. _I'm_ not, and I want to be."

"But he's you. You're the same person. Okay, sure, you're younger looking and you don't seem to be a hologram, but it won't work."

"Why won't it work?" he asked, putting his hands on his hips. "You and me, we're great together."

A faint smile appeared for only a split second. "Yeah, we are," Then her expression changed back to a despairing one. "but I need you to stay here. You're the only thing that's keeping him going."

Rimmer opened his mouth to speak but was abruptly stopped.

"And don't you lose your sanity and go all mushy on me and say something like, 'You keep me going.' You know damn well that isn't what I meant."

"If you mean how I'm the one and only coherent person left in this cesspool filled with other perverted, dark and depressing beings... yes. Yes, I do."

That wasn't saying much. He wasn't entirely all there either but in comparison to everyone else taking up residence in the crowded one-bedroom flat that was Arnold Rimmer's brain, he was a lot more docile.

Aria caressed the sweep of his cheek. "I need you to keep him here, for me."

Rimmer nodded once and put on a fake, thin-lipped smile. "Right," he said, disappointment in his tone. He began walking away.

"Where are you going?"

Rimmer turned on his heels, then pointed behind him. "You said–"

"You can walk me out."

"Well, thank you for giving me that opportunity. I feel privileged," he retorted, feigning gratitude.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Jerk. C'mon," She nudged the hologram a second time. "we have to back to the console."


	9. Limbo

A room, surrounded in darkness, was all that remained. Time didn't exist. Just a vast, endless expanse of nothingness. A void. The floor was covered in a thin layer of water in which a young woman lay on her side, stirring slightly. That young woman was Aria.

Her baby blues gradually opened; one and then the other, like an owl, blinking. She pushed herself up. Water dripped from her soaked clothes.

As she looked around, she couldn't help but wonder how the hell she wound up there. The last thing she remembered was giving virtual Rimmer a hug, then pressing a button that obliterated his rampancy. For all intents and purposes, it was gone, which was a first in artificial intelligence and computer science history. She did the impossible, but she didn't feel too mighty. She was lost, terrified and perplexed in a bizarre place. Bravery and confidence fled the moment she laid eyes on the rampancy monster and hadn't come back since.

"What is this place?" she wondered out loud.

As time passed, she could hear indistinct voices. She wouldn't swear to it, but she thought she could make out Kryten, as well as others, which she did not recognise at all.

"Can anyone hear me?"

No response.

Aria saw the mechanoid, scarcely. He was still a hazy image to her. "Kryten! Over here!" She waved at him with both arms to get his attention, except it was no use. She was invisible to him.

"Shit..."

Outside of the AR machine, Kryten paced, occasionally glancing at Aria's vitals. He was grateful they were at normal levels, but something still wasn't right.

"Miss Harkness? Can you hear me?"

Admittedly, he knew that was a foolish question — talking at all was pointless, since she most likely couldn't answer back — but he felt he should do something instead of waiting around, becoming more of a nervous wreck. All he could do, though, was hope and pray to the silicone Gods that Rimmer wouldn't dismantle him for this.

Without warning, just as Kryten had given up, the machine made a sequence of beeps in an inane tune, snaring the mechanoid's attention.

A screen on the AR machine read as, _"All players have exited this program."_

Kryten smiled and gasped in relief. "Ma'am! Thank goodness you are–! Ma'am?"

Aria wasn't moving. She wasn't doing anything. No snarky comeback about how she was right, no asking for pizza and vodka in celebration of how right she was — nothing.

"Oh, no," Kryten uttered, fearing for her life _and _his own.

A sudden flash of white gleamed in the corner of the room. What used to be a tiny device was now a full-sized, adult male, one who was now toppling over the edge of the machine and on to the ground with a loud yelp.

Kryten hurriedly waddled to the hologram. "Sir! Are you okay?"

At first, Rimmer didn't answer. He didn't know how he could. Everything was a blur to him, no memory of how he got here or where he even was. His hazel eyes glanced about, taking in his surroundings; eventually, a familiar recollection filled the void in his head, spinning up memories of Lister having it off with some jail-bait ball girl in that stupid, smegging _Wimbledon_ tennis game, and playing virtual cowboys as they tried to help Kryten figure out an antidote for the Armageddon virus.

Recognition donned on his face. "Why am I here?"

"We saw your messages, sir. We loaded your mind into the AR machine to attempt to restore you to your original self. Obviously, it worked," he replied and waved his hand to the hologram.

"I thought that–" Rimmer's words then fell dead and brittle like autumn leaves. He couldn't give his secret away. If he did, Kryten would _force_ him to erase a month worth of memories. There was a reason he declined to in the first place. "What worked?" he asked instead.

"Ah, well, erm... That, I'm not so sure about. I wasn't there to see what happened."

Rimmer rubbed his face with both hands. When he dropped his hands back to his hips with a light slap, his hair was sticking up where he ruffled it and his eyes appeared wide, if not a little manic. Taking a peek at Aria earlier, he realised she remained in the AR seat, unresponsive.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked. Damp breath mingled with his words.

"I'm not sure, sir. According to the machine's read-out, she returned from the simulation, but I cannot get her to come around. I fear she may be in a coma, induced by being stuck in your mind."

Rimmer's knees turned to jelly and he crumpled to the floor, right in front of her. He flipped up the visor to see her eyes were closed. While he stared intently at her, he tried to seize hold of Kryten's response and make sense of what he meant.

"Coma? Sh-she can't be," he managed to reply through shaky, fast breaths.

"She can't _die_, sir. She _can_ still fall into a comatose state."

_She did this to save me... That's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I can't let her go._

The hologram's trembling hands laid on her forearms, his long fingers wrapped easily around them. He bowed his head down slightly, then pressed his forehead against hers, as they used to do, and placed one hand at the back of her neck. It always seemed to help him whenever she did this; he reckoned it might help this time as well.

"Aria, wake up," he said in a whimper. "I love you, too. I need you. Don't abandon me!" His whimpers promptly became full-on sobs.

Kryten wanted nothing more than for Rimmer to stop. He hadn't seen Rimmer this emotionally wrecked since he witnessed one of the hologram's therapy sessions with Snacky. "Sir, please. Let's not go into hysterics."

"Why the smeg not?" he demanded as he shot up. "I did this to her! Me! Mister Warped Minded Git!"

"Sir?"

"You said it yourself: it was _my_ psyche she was in. Ergo, _my_ fault."

"Honestly, I assumed she was leaving with me. I suppose she didn't want to leave the task unfinished. However, if I can reenter your mind, I may be able to retrieve her."

_"Arnold?"_

Rimmer whipped his head back to Aria. "What is–?"

"Are you okay, sir?"

He regarded Kryten with narrowed eyes. "Didn't you hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything."

_"Rimmer, you damn well better get me out of here!"_

"How?"

"Mister Rimmer, I think you may have some residual damage. Permission to run a diagnostic?"

He shot the mechanoid a glare. "I'm fine, you demented Tonka Toy!"

"Demented? I'm not the one talking to myself!"

"I wasn't talking to myself, I was talking to her!" he exclaimed, motioning to Aria.

"She's out if it, sir, you couldn't have been talking to her."

_"Would you two shut up?"_

"Do you mind, Harkness? We're trying to have a conversation about how I'm not crazy."

_"That'll be a quick one, then."_

"_You _are on report for that, mi'lassie!"

Kryten put a finger to his chin. "Hm, curious. Allow me to alter the AR audio's frequency. Perhaps then we'll be able to hear her outside of your head," He tapped a couple of illuminated buttons on the console. "Miss Harkness?"

_"What?!" _she shouted.

Rimmer leaned in towards Kryten's ear and whispered, "She is definitely not happy."

"I can see that, sir. Er, I mean _hear_, sir," Kryten cleared his throat and spoke up. "Miss Harkness, are you still in Mister Rimmer's mind?"

_"I don't know. There was nothing before, and now I'm cold and alone in a black room, I'm hearing voices and I– I don't know."_

"Try to look for any details, ma'am. Can you see anything that might provide us with a clue?"

_"I told you, I don't know. It's like– I look right and I can see you guys, I look left and I see the simulation we were in."_

"I think I understand now. You're caught in the middle, between realities — one virtual, the other real life."

"Then how are we able to talk to her?"

"Best guess, a part of her is still in some sort of plane of existence, allowing her to communicate with us."

"So what does this mean for her? How can we get her back?"

Kryten grimaced in anticipation of the hologram's violent reaction. Anxiously, he spoke, "Well, I erm–"

_"I think I know," _said Aria, devoid of any emotion.

"And?"

_"You can't. Not unless you open an interdimensional gate."_

Rimmer tore his gaze away from Aria and stared at a spot on the wall, appearing sombre with nominal hope left. Unless he acquired telekinetic powers to unlock a portal, he couldn't bring her back.

"That may be a possibility," Kryten told them.

"Oh, how?" Rimmer asked with a tinge of irritation in his voice. He didn't want to hear anything from Captain Bog Bot, much less any optimism; he wanted to stew in his self-resentment and be miserable for a while longer.

"_Wildfire_."

This slightly piqued the hologram's interest. His eyes lit up with a smidgen of faith, yet still not a lot. "What about it?"

"It can travel to any dimension. Presumably, it can also traverse interdimensional space."

_"Oh, God," _Aria groaned.

Rimmer shifted his annoyed glare to Aria. "I beg your pardon?"

_"Arn, you've told me you could barely lock the ship's doors let alone fly the damned thing!"_

Rimmer thrust a finger at her. "I will have you know–!" He broke off, hazel eyes narrowing once again, brows furrowed as he thought of justifications. None came to him in the end. "Kryten, you do it," he swiftly commanded.

"I can't. I'm not as familiar with the controls as you are, sir."

_"That's my point. Neither was he!"_

"Shut up," he spat out through gritted teeth.

"You must try, sir. Surely you love her enough to do _that_ much."

Rimmer considered this for a long time, not because he wasn't sure if he loved her or not — he just admitted to that a few minutes ago — but because he didn't want it to be known, even though he _just_ confessed to it a few minutes ago.

He tapped his lips with his index finger, feigning deep thought, and within seconds he replied, "Nope!"

"But, sir, I did hear–"

"YOU HEARD NOTHING!" A composing clear of his throat was let loose as he straightened his uniform. "Moving on..."

_"Arn, if you do this, I'll let you do whatever you want to me."_

Smirking, he raised a single eyebrow with curiosity. "Anything?"

_"Anything," _she said. Already knowing what he was about to suggest next, she promptly cut him off before he even had the chance to say anything. _"Except for that!"_

His shoulders slumped with a sigh. "Will we ever–?"

_"No. Now, are you getting me out of here or not?"_

He was deep in thought; this time, legitimately, narrowed eyes locked on Kryten as he contemplated. In the end, he relented, but on one condition. "Fine. Only if Kryten comes with–"

"That's fair, sir."

"– and be my Canary."

Having known what the Canaries did from being in the brig, a panicked expression flittered across the mechanoid's angled features. "Sir?" he incredulously uttered. "You can't seriously mean–!"

"I can and I do. No point in me getting skewered by whatever lurks in the Upsidedown. You go in first. If you don't make it, then I'll know to cut and run."

_"ARNOLD JUDAS RIMMER!"_

The hologram jumped. He was noticeably shaken up, wild eyes and flared nostrils in abundance from the angry Welshwoman. Rimmer then attempted to speak. "O-okay. Fair enough. W-we'll both go," He cleared his throat one last time. "Kryten?" With a motion towards Aria, he gave the silent cue for the mech to get to work.


End file.
